Choosing Security Suite for 2013

I've been using Kaspersky Internet Security for a couple of years now and my license is soon to expire. I'm looking to change to another security suite though as I find it can be quite the resource hog. Can anyone recommend an alternative?

Norton seems to come top in a lot of reviews but I know there's a lot of hate towards Norton too, and there's always mixed reviews for other security suites too so I'm a bit unsure of what to go for next.

Ideally I'd like one that is as good or better than Kaspersky, particularly in terms of the anti-virus and firewall, but that doesn't use up too much system resources and slow down my laptop like Kaspersky often does.

All have their ups and downs and can change dependent on a simple small update so whats the best today may be an absolute resource hog a week later with crappy test results but a few weeks later it could be top of the league again

Kaspersky can be a tricky one to completely remove .... make sure you wipe it totally

If for home use there's little (well no) point in paying for a security suite .... job can be done for free with likes of comodo internet security 6 (just out) which I'd certainly trust over norton ... have it installed on a few computers here .. PLUS ... malwarebytes paid version as an extra safety net, search for voucher codes & you'll get it half price .. pay once software & it's yours for life!

paid malwarebytes adds shields than runs alongside antivirus ..... extra safety net as every anti virus has a weakness here & there .... entirely optional & maybe me being a wee bit more careful than I need to be .. but better to play safe for with a one-off payment I feel.
Used to use Avast but it didn't seem to like configuration of my win7 x64 ... so switched to another freebie (comodo) which seems to like my pc a bit more & licence allows business use for no charge

If you go to the independent AV test sites such as AV Test or AV Comparatives you'll see that Bitdefender 2013 scores as one of the best suites in terms of protection, repair and usability. There are various prices offered for the suite and it also appears regularly on cover discs with free 6 month trials. I can confirm once setup it runs unobtrusively in the background and is not resource hungry.

If you go to the independent AV test sites such as AV Test or AV Comparatives you'll see that Bitdefender 2013 scores as one of the best suites in terms of protection, repair and usability. There are various prices offered for the suite and it also appears regularly on cover discs with free 6 month trials. I can confirm once setup it runs unobtrusively in the background and is not resource hungry.

In my opinion it's well worth checking out.

Bitdefender has been my current AV for the last six months. It does occasionally have an impact on performance (usually when opening folders with a ton of files), but overall it's fine. I only use the AV though, and not the full secuirty suite.

My usual advice is to try out a trial of whichever AV you like the look of and see how it performs on your machine(s). AVs can be so temperamental that it's the only reliable way to decide.

I tried their online scanner a little while ago and it got to 49% 'analyzing critical areas' and it stopped (though it appeared to be still working) ... left it for a good 10 mins but nothing doing.
Funny, as 49% is the pic shown on their scanner page.

Anyway I disabled Avira and tried again, no problems and a quick scan.